LK Advani’s Blog

About two decades back the Telegraph of Calcutta had published a longish interview with me. I was B.J.P. President at the time. The interviewer was its Special Correspondent, Manini Chatterji. Today, she is Editor, Current Affairs, in the same paper. 

An unusual question Manini had posed to me in that interview was “What is the one word that appeals to you most in your life?” My reply was: “Credibility”. Whatever I am, and whatever I have been able to do for my country and for my party is because of the credibility I have earned in my life. Then, it is not only my personal credibility, but also my party’s.

In an article Click to Read More

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“What the hell is going on in this country,” commented an exasperated Supreme Court last week as it expressed its indignation over the lack of government’s seriousness in bringing to book alleged black money offenders like Hasan Ali Khan. The Supreme Court was hearing the petition filed by Ram Jethmalani, Subhash Kashyap and KPS Gill.

A Bench comprising Justices B. Sudershan Reddy and S.S. Nijjar, warned the Government that it would be forced to monitor investigations into black money if the authorities kept viewing it as a tax evasion issue and failed to pursue the source of the illegal money stashed abroad.

The Bench further asked Solicitor General Click to Read More

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India has been independent for over six decades now. For the first three decades the Congress Party dominated the political scene like a colossus. It was in power in most of the States. In the Lok Sabha, none of the non-Congress parties could muster strength even to secure the status of the Official Opposition, with its leader named Leader of the Opposition.

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In the past three decades I have attended numerous book release functions. In my preamble to the comments I have been making on the book to be launched I have often remarked that during the nineteen months of the infamous Emergency (1975-77) which I spent mainly in the Bangalore Central Jail, and briefly in the Rohtak Jail, the one word that used to bring great cheer to all the political prisoners behind bars was the word ‘release’. So, since my own release on 18^th January, 1977 – arrest was on 26^th June 1975 – whenever I have been approached by an author with the request to ‘release’ his book, I have rarely disappointed him.

One of the most Click to Read More

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Last week I was invited by the Ramakrishna Mission, Belgaum, to come to Belgaum and formally inaugurate a large auditorium they had put up quite close to the place where Swami Vivekananda had stayed during his first tour of South India.

For this function, all trustees of the Ramakrishna Mission Trust from all over the country, including the Mission Head Quarters at Vellur Math, Calcutta, had come.

My visit to Belgaum was literally an interaction with history. Just visiting the place where Swami Vivekananda had stayed for nine Click to Read More

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On Republic Day every year, after witnessing the Parade at the Rajpath I have been having a mini flag-hoisting ritual at my residence also. The participants are mainly the security personnel on duty at my place. This year my daughter Pratibha had for them a screening of her one hour documentary “Vande Mataram”.

To the media persons present I said, Republic Day is a day when every Indian should feel a sense of pride that he belongs to a great country that is respected the world over.

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The year 2011 is a significant year for India.

Exactly one hundred years back, in 1911, King George V and Queen Mary, came to India and at a Darbar held in Delhi on December 12 announced that the Partition of Bengal was annulled, and that the capital of British India was being shifted from Calcutta to Delhi.

This year also marks the 150^th anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s birth.

The week just gone by saw the nation observing its Republic Day festivities. But it is a shame that in Click to Read More

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The BJP’s Youth Wing has undertaken a Tiranga Yatra from Kolkatta to Srinagar to hoist the Tricolour at Lal Chowk, Srinagar, on Republic Day. The yatra started from Kolkatta on January 12, and after travelling through seven states passed through Delhi on January 20. 

At 5 .00 P.M. that evening at a function at the Vithal Bhai Patel Bhavan grounds, New Delhi  I formally handed over to Anurag Thakur, M.P., and President of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, a Tricolour Flag to be hoisted in Srinagar.

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By all evaluations the Man Mohan Singh Government is passing through the worst crisis of its six and a half year tenure. The spectrum scam, the Commonwealth games scam and the Defence land scam of Mumbai have come all together in a manner as to make the common man feel that many in the government today are not just making money on the sly, but they are brazenly looting the country.

More worrisome is the fact that this is a crisis not only for Government but also for the country. The present level of corruption and inflation undermines the nation’s collective self-confidence.

Such a situation always reminds me of the grave crisis that confronted Indian democracy in 1975-77. Then too the nation had lost all hope that the pre Click to Read More

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During India’s freedom struggle against British Rule, in the year 1930 two major events occurred. One was Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi March; the other was the Chittagong Armoury raid.

Gandhiji commenced his Dandi March for the ‘Salt satyagraha’ on March 12 from Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad. Along with 78 Ashramites he walked a distance of 390 kms. to reach Dandi on the West Coast where on April 6 morning he defied the law to make salt from the sea. The British Government arrested him thereafter.

For us in the BJP, this date on which Gandhiji performed his salt satyagraha and courted arrest is very significant because exactly Click to Read More

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